More Liu Donors Said to Be Examined in Fund-Raising Inquiry

John C. Liu at an event at a Queens school this month. A poll suggests an inquiry is taking a toll on Mr. Liu's standing with voters.Credit
Uli Seit for The New York Times

The federal inquiry into the campaign finances of New York City’s comptroller, John C. Liu, a possible mayoral candidate in 2013, appears to be widening, with people knowledgeable about the matter saying Thursday that there has been an increased focus on seeking information from his supporters in the Chinese-American business community.

In recent weeks, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation have delivered subpoenas seeking a broad range of records and other information to a growing circle of Mr. Liu’s more generous donors, said the people knowledgeable about the matter, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. The supporters who have now been subpoenaed include at least one who acknowledged to The New York Times that he had served as bundler, or someone who helped Mr. Liu raise money from others; and another went to a donor who worked at a company headed by a bundler.

Mr. Liu’s campaign has failed to disclose the names of its bundlers, as required by law.

The investigation of Mr. Liu’s campaign finances, which led to the arrest of one of his fund-raisers in November on attempted wire fraud and conspiracy charges, has been an embarrassment for Mr. Liu, the city’s top fiscal watchdog and an auditor by training. The situation has also cast a pall over his mayoral prospects; according to a poll released on Thursday, his approval ratings have plummeted.

Mr. Liu’s criminal defense lawyer, Paul L. Shechtman, and a spokesman for his campaign, George Arzt, declined to comment on Thursday about the new subpoenas.

An examination by The Times also raised questions about the legality of donations to Mr. Liu, including whether some of the donors had been reimbursed for their contributions.

The investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the F.B.I. began in 2009, people briefed on the case have said. But it picked up steam in March when an undercover F.B.I. agent posing as a businessman was introduced to one of the comptroller’s fund-raisers, Xing Wu Pan, the man who was arrested last month, according to the criminal complaint in his case.

The two men had conversations over several months in which they discussed having the undercover agent make a large contribution, more than four times the legal limit of $4,950, to Mr. Liu’s campaign, the complaint said. Ultimately, Mr. Pan helped the agent posing as a businessman funnel $16,000 to the campaign, the court papers say. Mr. Pan recruited so-called straw donors who contributed to Mr. Liu and then reimbursed them with the undercover agent’s cash, the papers say.

Mr. Pan, according to the complaint, admitted to the F.B.I. that he had illegally funneled the undercover agent’s cash through straw donors and had illegally funneled large amounts of cash to Mr. Liu’s campaign on more than one occasion in the past.

The new subpoenas suggest that the prosecutors and agents are focusing on Mr. Liu’s bundlers either to determine whether any other fund-raisers did the same thing and whether Mr. Liu knew, or to collect evidence to prove such a case in court.

One supporter said three F.B.I. agents visited the supporter’s office on Dec. 5 with a subpoena seeking records related to Mr. Liu’s campaign fund-raising, including calendars, e-mails, bank statements and canceled checks.

The subpoena was signed by three prosecutors in the office of the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara.

On Wednesday, three F.B.I. agents visited the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a Chinatown civic group, to deliver a subpoena. It requested documents on a Jan. 10 fund-raiser for Mr. Liu at Delight 28 restaurant on Pell Street, according to people briefed on the visit. The subpoena was reported in the Thursday editions of Sing Tao Daily, a Chinese-language newspaper.

One person briefed by an association official said the agents asked about two of Mr. Liu’s campaign aides and identified one as Jia Hou, known as Jenny, the campaign’s treasurer.

The group’s leaders, among Mr. Liu’s earliest and most loyal supporters, were planning to hold a fund-raising rally for him on Monday at Delight 28, but it was announced on Thursday that the event had been postponed because of the subpoenas. “This is not a good time,” said Eddie Chiu, an official with the Lin Sing Association, a civic group, who said he had discussed the event with the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. “People are worried about this.”

The announcement came hours after the release of a Quinnipiac University poll that showed Mr. Liu had suffered a steep drop in his approval ratings. In the poll, 35 percent of voters disapproved of his performance, while 38 percent approved. The poll’s margin of error was three percentage points.

Only 25 percent said they thought that he would be a good mayor, compared with 46 percent who said he would not be. The remainder had no opinion on the question.

Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on December 16, 2011, on page A37 of the New York edition with the headline: More Donors Said to Be Examined as Investigation Into Liu’s Fund-Raising Widens. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe